Sunball Days

No flash-in-a-pan, this was La Corona's
terrace last Thursday.

Tracking Down a Demo

by Ric
Erickson

Paris:- Monday, 17. March 2003:- Last week's flop
of a sunny weather forecast is now in history's trashcan.
It has been replaced by true and real 'indestructible
sunshine,' which is evident to the unaided naked eyeball
from about seven in the morning until sundown around 19:00
in the afternoon.

From my experience of looking at the sky, I rate its
clearness at about 96 percent - which is as good as it can
get without becoming completely 100 percent glassy. This is
quite rare for Paris, although it happens sometimes for a
week in February. For mid-March, it is nothing less than
miraculous.

Today's forecast is a very simple one. Sunshine is
predicted every day until Friday, for all of France. Highs
in Paris are not expected to exceed 15 degrees. If you want
more, Biarritz will be the place to be.

This is due, according to TV-weather news, to the Azores
'high' being here for a change instead of in the location
of the Azores. It finally found its way.

What is the believability quotient of this forecast?
Without reference to either today's newspaper weather or
this evening's TV-weather news, I rate the forecast at 95
percent until Wednesday, and 65 percent thereafter.

Only exceptional weather ever brings us a solid week of
sunshine. I cannot recall a recent occurrence - not unless
I think back to the extraordinary year of 1976. Of course,
my memory is not as reliable as it used to be either.

Café Life

Lonesome Prairie,
Continued

My last five crabby days at the Cadillac Ranch went
pretty quickly, broken as they were by a day off for the
Café Metropole Club's secretary to attend a club
meeting and put its notes online.

This, and the Monday in Paris to put last week's edition
online, made Tiger the cat all the more friendly
when I
returned to the ranch. Tiger especially appreciated my
remembering to bring a lot of tuna in little tins -
favorite brand, 'Petit Navaire.'

My reward was waking up with Tiger purring in my ear on
account of us sharing one smallish pillow. Another reward
was getting a surprise wash for my dirty face with Tiger's
sandpaper-like tongue. On Saturday I woke up bow-legged,
with Tiger in the middle of the 'bow,' which prevented me
from turning on either side.

Here it is - 10 degrees
in the shade of a 'Chipmunk Crossing.'

In other areas Tiger showed little interest in
documentaries on Arte-TV, and none in the one DVD I
watched. I forgot where to find the satellite channels on
any of the three remote controls, so Tiger did not get to
see any CNN or BBC Prime news. The cat was so content with
this that it happily chewed my sweater - or maybe it was
finding tidbits I'd dribbled on it.

I cannot be certain, but I think Tiger slept about 23
hours a day. At least she wasn't around much as I trashed
about 400 emails a day - about 300 for WFI and 175 for
Metropole.

I mention this because your email might have been one of
them. I was getting Metropole's through 'Web2Mail' which
works pretty good - it disappears all attachments - but
sometimes it vaporizes perfectly legitimate emails. If you
are waiting for a reply from me, maybe you should
resend.

Finally, back from the wide open prairie on Saturday, it
was good to be in Paris, and good to go to a street
demonstration just to get back into the true mood of the
place.

70,000 'Lost' Demonstrators

Reading Le Parisien to find out what is going to happen
is a guessing game. The 'Demo of the Day' is announced in
the day's edition as a traffic incident, as in 'stay away
from the Place de la Nation' at 14:00 on Saturday.

In fact there were three demos on Saturday. One at
République at 14:00, another at an unknown
time between Sèvres-Babylon and the Avenue de
Ségur, and the anti-war one, mentioned merely as,
'De la Nation à la République à
15h.'

For some demonstrations, use the Rue Lappe
shortcut.

Nation to République is a common route, but it
can run straight down the Boulevard Voltaire, or it can
take the longer Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine to Bastille,
and then turn up the Boulevard Beaumarchais towards
République.

I couldn't 'see' the last demo that started from
Denfert-Rochereau because I couldn't get to the front of
it. So on Saturday I decided to 'find' the head of the demo
by walking towards it. I started at métro Richard
Lenoir in the hope that I could cover both possible
routes.

No cops is a signal of no demo, so I switched slightly
right at the Place Léon Blum, to head down the
Avenue Ledru Rollin towards the Rue du Faubourg
Saint-Antoine. Cops blocking traffic at Rue de Charonne
showed this was right, but I could see marchers already
passing west along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

So I took the Rue de Charonne west, but after it turned,
I could see the marchers again. Then I took the Rue de
Lappe to get to Bastille quickly. Along the way a TV crew
asked me how I liked the Quartier, and I said it was a fine
shortcut to Bastille.

The head of the demo was beyond Bastille when I arrived
and the middle of it was passing through the big place.
This at least told me the demo was not a quarter-million
strong.

Sunday's Le Parisien put the number at 60-80,000.
Anti-war political leaders were at the front, followed by
American residents of Paris. I saw Turks, Kurds, and
Palestinians, somewhere in the middle. According to the
paper, Socialist supporters mingled with the anarchists,
Communists and Trotskyist LO party, at the rear.

In Paris, it was a perfect day for it. Smaller rallies
took place in the Paris region, and throughout France. Really
big numbers were out - in contrast - with 600,000 reported
to be in the streets of the capital of Yemen, 100,000 in
Berlin, 400,000 in Milan and 300,000 in Barcelona, and a
lot in Madrid. TV-news showed demonstrators in Washington,
DC too.

For all the stand-ups at Bastille, there were
hundreds sitting on café terraces.

But the problem remains - of how to join a demo in Paris
if you can't be at its launch site on time. Only experience
helps, plus watching out for where the police are
controlling traffic. Having good hearing also helps to
pinpoint a noisy parade of protesters.

Oddly, every Friday Le Parisien publishes a fairly
detailed route of the evening's Friday Night Roller Rando.
Drivers of course never read this, because they are always
complaining of being held up by it if they run into its
path. They might have to wait for 20 minutes.

But 60-80,000 demonstraors can bring a quarter of Paris
to a standstill for an entire Saturday
afternoon.